Bouba-Kiki in the plate: Combining crossmodal correspondences to change flavour experience
Open accessAbstract
While recent studies demonstrate the unexpected influence of plate shape and abstract names on the taste and flavour of foods, it is still challenging to derive more specific rules about how to use verbal and visual presentation to affect the experience of a complex dish. In the present study, we paired with the Experimental Kitchen at The Fat Duck to manipulate both plate shape and serving presentation of a complex dish and to investigate the relative contributions and interaction of these two factors on the naming and sensory evaluation of the food. The results confirm that certain visual presentations of food, but not plate shape, were associated with unfamiliar names if they respected sound symbolic associations. By contrast, the change in the perceived sweetness of the dishes was driven by the interaction between the shape of the plate and the presentation of the dish. The study therefore allows us to disentangle the effects of plate shape and dish presentation on the diner’s expectations and experience and shows how fundamental research on crossmodal effects can inform the creative process in the kitchen.
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Serving a beetroot salad in a round plate plus round food shape leads to significantly sweeter ratings than the congruent angular plate plus angular food shape condition, with incongruent conditions rating in-between.
“Serving the salad in the round plate plus round food shape led to significantly sweeter ratings than the congruent angular plate plus angular food shape condition, with the incongruent conditions (where plate shape did not match food shape) rating somewhere in-between.”
From The Role of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Sensory Factors in Sweetness Perception of Food and Beverages: A Review (2019) · cites this paper as [31]
The Discussion (page unavailable) says the same ingredients were rated sweeter with rounded food on a round plate than with angular food on an angular plate, and the Results report a significant sweetness effect. Our copy does not establish that both incongruent conditions had ratings between those two conditions; the reported significance test compares changes between congruent and incongruent servings across plate groups, rather than directly testing the two congruent conditions. (LLM, conf=0.84)
Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredFood-extrinsic shape can evoke taste similar associations when it comes to plate shape, packaging shape, and typeface/font.
“Like food shape, food-extrinsic shape can also evoke taste similar associations when it comes to plate shape [31,57] (though see Reference [8]) and even packaging shape [68] and typeface / font [69]”
From The Role of Intrinsic and Extrinsic Sensory Factors in Sweetness Perception of Food and Beverages: A Review (2019) · cites this paper as [31]
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References 22 · Cited by 51
Research works printed but not linked: 2
- Deroy O, Valentin D. Tasting liquid shapes: investigating cross-modal correspondences. Chemosens Percept. 2011;4:80-90.
- Bremner A, Caparos S, Davidoff J, de Fockert J, Linnell K, Spence C. Bouba and Kiki in Namibia? Western shape-symbolism does not extend to taste in a remote population. Cognition. 2013;126:165-72.
- Authors
- Fairhurst, M. T., Pritchard, D., Ospina, D., & Deroy, O.
- Affiliations
- University of London (GB)
- Japan Food Research Laboratories (JP)
- Corresponding author
- Fairhurst, Merle T
- Venue
- Flavour
- Published
- 2015-05-15
- Volume
- 4
- Issue
- 1
- ISSN
- 2044-7248 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W1572546365
- Cited by
- 51
- References
- 22
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 3 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 7 · 2022: 6 · 2021: 3 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 5 · 2017: 2 · 2016: 12 · 2015: 3
- FWCI
- 8.46
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Locations
- Flavour (publishedVersion, cc-by)
- Funders
- Arts and Humanities Research Council (AH/L007053/1)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Experimental and Cognitive Psychology › Multisensory perception and integration
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Food Science › Sensory Analysis and Statistical Methods
- Life Sciences › Agricultural and Biological Sciences › Food Science › Culinary Culture and Tourism
- Keywords
- cross-modal correspondence, bouba-kiki effect, plate shape, food presentation, sound symbolism, flavor perception, perceived sweetness, food naming, sensory evaluation
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